A Blog About Food & So Much More

MIA

Okay, okay. I know I’ve been missing in action for over a month now. The last post I made talked about an interview in Los Angeles, a city which is now my home 🙂 Yup, I got the job! Which explains why for the past four or five weeks I haven’t focused much on cooking or blogging (or working out, haha). Making the arrangements to move your life some 2300 miles is time-consuming and exhausting. However, this big tumultuous event in my life allowed me to check two more things off my current food bucket list! Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? 😉

As my moving date got closer, there were a lot of good-byes happening. The week before I left, my mom and I met my aunt and uncle and two cousins in Green Bay for dinner. My aunt suggested the Green Bay Distillery, which is pretty new. I love me some good pub food, so we agreed. She had seen my blog post about my food bucket list, and the fried pickles entry caught her attention 🙂 She’d had them at this place, so when we met up she said we had to try them. As a side note, her and the boys also said I needed to try the “Wisconsin White Buffalo Cheese Curds.” The menu describes them as “Breaded deep fried cheese curds tossed in our championship hot sauce. Topped with Bleu cheese crumbles and served with a ranch dipping sauce.” Okay, seriously? That’s like three of my favorite things (curds, wings, bleu cheese) in one food item. I was in heaven, to say the least. I will be dreaming about those things out here in California until the next time I can get home to Wisco! The real excitement came when the fried pickles came out with our entrees (I had the cheese curd burger on a pretzel bun. Delicious.)! The Distillery uses dill pickle chips in this case, though I’ve been told you can also get dill spears deep-fried. This was pure salty, crunchy heaven! The pickles were very thin, and the breading was too, so they balanced each other well. This resulted in a really deep, salty flavor from the pickle without it tasting too much like an actual vinegary pickle (is this even making sense?!). I can best sum up my experience as YUM. Thanks Aunt Suz for a delightful going away meal…I still have to pick up some wine to christen my new glass, though 😉

So, I’m 2 for 2 on bucket list entries. Feeling pretty good. And then Alison and I finalize the route we’re taking to drive out to California and it becomes apparent…I’ll be able to check off a third entry.

Why? Because I can be a bit of a panicky driver, and even though it was September, I didn’t feel like driving the “short” route from Wisco to Cali through Denver and the heart of the Rockies. I’d never really seen what the interstate through the mountains looked like, though I’d had plenty of experience with other roads full of switchbacks in March. I decided I’d pass. A more southern route would allow us to see new parts of the country (we’d both been in Colorado before), including the Grand Canyon! And a more southern route meant we’d be able to spend our first night on the road in Kansas City. Home of Oklahoma Joe’s!

Our first day of driving was our easiest by far. I had driven a lot of these roads before, which always makes you more comfortable. Plus, it was a short day. I left home at 7 a.m., and we were in KC by 6:30, even with an hour stop in Madison to have breakfast with our littlest sister one last time (“hey Oney!” 😉 ). We grabbed a light lunch at Subway somewhere in Iowa in anticipation of our barbeque dinner feast. Once we checked in to the hotel, we freshened up a bit. Not sure why, as we were heading to a gas station to eat bbq. Haha. Anyways, we got there, and the line was to the door. Not out the door, thru the hall and into the parking lot (like Pappy’s), but to the door nonetheless. This is when things got ugly. We picked up a menu, scoured it…and to our dismay, found NO burnt ends anywhere on the paper. Or on the huge menu written on the wall. My heart sank a little. But clearly, with a line this long and so many people happily chowing down, whatever was on the menu was pretty tasty. So we sucked up our disappointment. It only took about 30 minutes to get our order in. We decided this food experience would be more about comparisons than trying something new & both ordered the brisket. The selection of side dishes here was smaller and less exciting than Pappy’s (and you only get one). I got regular creamy cole slaw and Ali got a spicy version. I liked mine just fine, but my favorite cole slaw will always be the one served at home during Hunting and Fishing Club trout boils with that amazing oil and celery seed dressing. I tried Ali’s, and the only difference was some added spices (probably one of the bbq rubs). It wasn’t really spicy or anything to rave about, but it wasn’t not good. Our meals also came with what was essentially Texas toast. We agreed we did like the fact that the bread was toasted, unlike the plain old slices of Wonder bread you get at Pappy’s 🙂

Now to the meat. (I love being able to type phrases like that, they make me laugh!)

It was perfect brisket! Not too fatty, but enough so for some nice flavor and tenderness. Thinly sliced and amazingly seasoned. It was definitely a little more peppery than Pappy’s (and the sauces here had a bit more kick too). So there were subtle differences. And we stuffed our faces in about 15 minutes 🙂 In the end, we were full and happy and the phrase I used was “this isn’t any better or worse than Pappy’s.” I think the overall experience (besides the waiting) is better over in The Lou when comparing these two joints. And the sides (oh that deep-fried corn on the cob) are DEFINITELY better over there. And of course, there’s the disappointment of not actually getting to try what was actually on my bucket list. So I suppose I can only count this entry as half done. In fact, I think I’ll go edit my list to reflect this fact 🙂

Once I got to L.A. and got cable hooked up, the Travel Channel was doing a big thing on barbeque. It made me giggle. On their Top Ten list, KC got a a place in the #2 slot. Arthur Bryant’s, here I come! Well, someday. If I can help it, I will never make that drive in reverse! Oklahoma and northern Texas were awful wastelands (no offense to the fine citizens of these places, in fact…God bless you!). The saving grace of that second day driving through these areas was when a Google search sent us to lunch at Irma’s Burger Shack in Oklahoma City. Oh. My. God. The beef down there. The charbroiled goodness. Oh, and….Irma’s has damn good fried pickles too 😉

4 Responses

Arthur Bryant’s is good…but we have another favorite BBQ place that it better in KC as Mark lived there for 3 years. Let me know when you are passing through again and I’ll give you the name of the place!